Soul - Spirit - Salvation

I bring this over from another thread because I think it is where Calvies "miss the boat." If you believe our "spiritual nature" consists only of our spirit and not the soul as well, you can make the tragic error that I believe that Calvinism makes.

First, I believe in that salvation of the SOUL leads furthermore and straightaway to salvation of the SPIRIT.

My point would be, we have to get our "moral compass," our soul/conscience, pointed towards God before we can even know the right direction to sanctification --- the right way to "think" about God. Unless we do that, a lot of the "guiding"/directing input we receive comes from outside --- from those whose paths we have chosen to follow, right?

That's why it has always bothered me that Calvies and Reform types acknowledge only one "spirit" in man. It is likely why they reject free will as well. If you have only one "spirit," it most certainly is "dead" to God and oriented towards sin. And there, indeed, would be no "non-oriented"/objective part of the spirit to collect "input" from creation (Rom 1:19-20) and from man (the gospel of Christ) with which to make a choice. Basically, all you would have is the spirit oriented to the flesh -- "total depravity," right? With everything to the contrary being an "I don't get it."

But it is not that we "don't get it" (the "everlasting gospel" in nature and word). We are, indeed, "without excuse!" It's that we "get it" but reject it! That is what God time and again indicts/convicts us of, right? There is that part of our being (another part of our "spirit" -- our mind, emotions, and will) that does "process" seemingly random data for "clues" to blessed living and to eternal living (Ecc 3:11 -- notice, God has "set eternity in their minds" if you read it using the model, heart = mind). But it chooses not to "flip" the orientation of the soul, the throne of one's life, over to God.

And instead of recognizing the biblical paradigm that "faith" flips the switch, Calvies stick to the one where God "flips" the "switch" that cannot be "switched" by "the man without excuse." If there is not separate spirit, Calvies would be right. But there is an intellect, emotions, and will that choose the overarching orientation of the soul/life.

So then the SOUL must be justified first. And this is confirmed by the OT. In the OT this is the only part of salvation -- the reorientation of the soul towards God -- that was accomplished during their lives. They did not receive the sanctification that comes with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Paul says that their sanctification via sacrifices was "for the purifying of the flesh," Heb 9:12 and was NOT by the Spirit to the sanctifying of the spirit and the flesh. It changed their ways/behavior but not how they thought about their ways.

skypair

 

Nobody wants to discuss this???

What? Have ya got no soul? :laugh:

sky